A King's Comrade Part 6

When I came to myself, my first thought was that a solid wall of that smell stood round me; but such were the virtues of the oil and the rubbing that when I woke after eighteen hours' sleep I was not so much as stiff. It would ill beseem me to complain thereof, therefore, but it might have been fresher.

When I woke from my great sleep it was long past noon. I lay in the shelter of the gunwales under the curve of the high stern post, wrapped in a yellow Irish cloak, and in my ears roared and surged a deep-voiced song, which kept time with the steady roll of oars and the thrashing of the water under their blades. The ship was quivering in every timber with the pull of them, and I could feel her leap to every stroke. The great red and white sail was set also, and the westerly breeze was humming in it, and over the high bows the spray arched and fell without ceasing as oar and sail drove the sharp stem through the seas. Thorleif was in a hurry for some reason.

Only one man was on the after deck, steering, and he was fully armed. Save that his brown arm swayed a little, resting on the carven tiller, as the waves lifted the steering oar with a creak now and then, he was motionless, looking steadily ahead under the arch of the foot of the sail. The run of the deck set me higher than him, and I could not see more than the feet of some men who were cl.u.s.tered on the fore deck. But I could look all down the length of the ship, and there every man was armed, even the rowers.

They had hung red and yellow wooden shields all along the gunwales, raising the bulwark against sea and arrow flight alike by a foot and more, and the rowers were fairly in shelter under them, if there was to be a broadside attack.

I never doubted that a fight was intended, though I could not tell why. Every man was at his post--two to each oar bench beside the rower, one with ready shield, and the other with bent bow, and these were looking forward also as they sang that hoa.r.s.e song which had roused me. I do not know that I have ever heard aught so terrible as that. The wildness and savageness of it bides with me, and of a night when the wind blows round the roof I wake and think I hear it again. But it set me longing for battle, even here on the strange deck, and I would that I might join in it.

And then I knew that my own weapons lay beside me, and I sprang up, and grasped the sword and seax in haste to buckle them on. They rattled, and the steersman turned his head and laughed at me. It was old Thrond.

"That is right, lad," he said, turning his head back to watch his course again. "None the worse for the wetting, it seems."

Truth to tell, I felt little of it, being altogether myself again after the rest. So I laughed also, setting aside for the moment the question of what my fate was to be. It was plain that the man who saved me from the sea and gave me back my arms did not mean to make a captive of me in any hard sort.

"Only mightily hungry," I said. "It seems that I have slept heavily."

Thrond jerked his free thumb toward a pitcher and wooden bowl that were set near me, without looking round.

"So I suppose," he said. "Eat well, and then we will see what sort of a viking you make. You have half an hour or so."

Ale and beef there were, ready for me, and I took them and sat down at the feet of the old chief, with my legs hanging over the edge of the fore deck. Thence I could see that Thorleif was forward, and that away to the northward of us a ship was heading across our course, under sail only. The two other Danish ships were far astern of us, but their oars were flashing in the sun as they made after us.

Then I looked northward for England, but there was only the sea's rim, and over that a bank of white summer clouds. Under the sun, to the south, was a long blue line of hills whose shapes were strange to me, and that was the Frankish sh.o.r.e. We were far across the Channel, and still heading eastward.

"Thrond," I said, "are you after that ship yonder?"

"Ay. She will be a Frankish trader going home, and worth overhauling. Maybe there will be no fight, however; but one never knows."

Now it was in my mind to ask him what would be done with me, but I did not. That was perhaps a matter which must be settled hereafter, and not on the eve of a fight at sea. Moreover, I thought that a Frankish ship was fair game for any one, and that if I were needed there was no reason at all why I should not take a hand in the fight. Certainly I should fare no worse for taking my plight in the best way I could. So I held my tongue and went on eating.

One or two of the men looked up from the oars and grinned at me, and of these one had a black eye, being the man I had knocked off the deck. It was plain that he bore no malice, so I smiled back at him, and lifted the jug of ale toward him as I drank. He was a pleasant-looking man enough, now that the savagery of battle had pa.s.sed from him.

Now I would have it remembered that a Saxon lad reared on the west Welsh marches is not apt to think much of a cattle raid and the fighting that ends it, and that with these Danes, who were so like ourselves, we had as yet no enmity. It seemed to me that being in strange company I must even fit myself to it, and all was wonderful to me in the sight of the splendid ship and her well-armed, well-ordered crew. Maybe, had we not been speeding to a fight the like of which I had never so much as heard of, I should have thought of home and the fears of those who would hear that I was gone; but as things were, how could I think of aught but what was on hand?

We were nearing the vessel fast, and seeing that she did not turn her head and fly, old Thrond growled that there was some fight in her.

"Unless," he added with a hard chuckle, "they have never so much as heard of a viking. Are there pirates in this sea, lad?"

"They say that the seamen from the southern lands are, betimes. I have heard of ships taken by swarthy men thence. The Cornish tin merchants tell the tales of them."

"Tin?" said Thrond. "Now I would that we had heard thereof before.

I reckon we pa.s.sed some booty westward. Eh, well, we shall know better next time."

After that he was silent, watching the ship ahead. She was a great heavy trader, with higher sides than this swift longship.

And presently, as I watched her, a thought came to me, and I was ashamed that I had not asked before if it was true that my cousin had not been hurt in the fighting.

"He was not harmed," answered the old chief. "He hurt us; he is a good fighter. Get yon shield and hold it ready to cover me. It is not worth while to have the helmsman shot, and it will set a man free to fight forward."

Now the ship was within arrow shot, and we could see that there were few men on her decks. Thorleif hailed her to heave to, sending an arrow on her deck by way of hint. Whereon she shot up into the wind, and her sail rattled down. Thrond whistled to himself.

"Empty as a dry walnut sh.e.l.l, or I am mistaken," he said between his teeth.

Then he shouted to Thorleif, and some order came back. The sail was lowered, and the ship swung alongside the stranger under oars only, while a rush of men came aft. Thorleif hailed the other ship to send him a line from the bows, and one flew on board us as we shot past. Then in a few moments we were under easy sail again, towing the great trader slowly after us; and the men were grumbling at the ease of the capture, thinking, with Thrond, that it boded a useless chase. Thorleif came aft to speak with the shipmaster from our stern.

Then there climbed on the bows of the trader a tall, handsome young man, at the sight of whom I could not withhold a cry of wonder, for I knew him well. He was Ecgbert the atheling, nephew of our great king Ina, and the one man whom Bertric feared as a rival when he came to the throne. His father and mine had been close friends, and we two had played and hunted together many a time, until the jealousy of Bertric drove him to seek refuge with Offa of Mercia. I thought him there yet.

"Yield yourselves," said Thorleif, "and we will speak in peace of ransom. I will come on board with a score of men, and harm none."

"We have yielded, seeing that there was no other chance for as,"

said Ecgbert quietly. "Come on board if you will, but on my word it is hardly worth your while. We left in too great a hurry to bring much with us."

"Whence are you, then, and whither bound?"

"From Mercia, by way of Southampton, and bound anywhere out of the way of Quendritha the queen. We had a mind to go to Carl the king, but any port in a storm!"

"Well," said Thorleif, laughing, "I am coming on board. That must be a terrible dame of whom you speak, if she has set the fear of death on a warrior such as you seem to be."

Then he bade the men haul on the cable, and the ships drew together slowly. I had to leave the deck, being in the way of the men, and Ecgbert did not see me, as far as I could tell.

Thorleif and his men boarded the prize over her bows and went aft, Ecgbert going with them. The two ships drifted apart again, and I found my place by Thrond once more, while the men sat on the gunwale, waiting for the time when their chief should return.

"Who is the queen yon Saxon speaks of?" asked Thrond.

I told him; and as we had heard much of her of late, I also told him how men said that she had been found on the sh.o.r.e by the king himself. Whereon Thrond's grave face grew yet more grave, and he said:

"Lad, is that a true tale?"

"My father had it from the thane who was with the king when they found her alone in her boat."

"So her name was not Quendritha when she began that voyage?"

"I have heard that she was a heathen. Mayhap the king gave her the name when she was christened. It means 'the might of the king.'"

So I suppose that he did, for the hope of what his wife should be.

Nor was the name ill chosen, as it turned out, for all men knew by this time that the queen was the wisest adviser in all the council of Mercia in aught to do with the greatness of the kingdom.

"I have ever had it in my mind that she would get through that voyage in safety," Thrond said. "Ran would not have her."

"What do you mean?"

"Lad, I saw her start thereon, or so I think. Tell me when she was found."

That I could do, within a very short time. My father and Offa had been wedded in the same year, as I had heard him say but a few days ago, at Winchester, as men talked of the bride whom we had welcomed, Quendritha's daughter. And as he heard, Thrond's face grew very dark.

"That is she. Now I will tell you the beginning of that voyage. I was a courtman then to the father of Thorleif, our jarl here, and I myself made the boat ready and launched her in it."

And then he told me that which I have set down at the beginning of this tale--neither more nor less. What was the fullness of the evil the woman had wrought he did not tell me, and I am glad.